First, Hamas has a destabilisation power over Israel for the victims Hamas’ attacks provoke and for their indirect effects (psychological trauma for the population, internal migration and lack of investments due to perceived insecurity, political extremism/division). — neomac

I find this argument weak.

What Hamas could do was to breach a wall that had lulled the Netanyahu goverment not to focus on Gaza and Hamas. And basically it seems that the Israelis were confident about the inability of the simpleton ragheads to do any kind of coordinated military strike against the wall. And then the wall was breached in a humiliation manner. Somehow it's quite similar to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which came as a surprise to Israel and it's leaders. Well, Hamas had planned it for a long time and then saw now the time to do it. Basically a force less than one infantry brigade (without any assisting arms) managed to infiltrate few kilometers into Israel, kill about 200 Israeli soldiers and 800 civilians. Some of those were killed by friendly fire as the IDF helicopters and incoming forces had trouble finding the terrorists among the people. I think in 24 hours or so the attack was over and Israel had gained back the territory. And naturally Hamas had withdrawn as they knew they had no way against the IDF on open terrain, even for a moment. To do that they would had to have vast numbers of shoulder lauched SAMs and Javelin-type ATGMs. Or tanks, aircraft, etc. Which they don't have as they have only their home made variants of the RPG-7 and rockets.

The "destabilisation power" that Hamas had was only because of the Israeli unpreparedness. This simply isn't at all an existential danger. A simple infantry/security team with enough ammunition could fight off the Hamas terrorists, as it in few places happened. A few companies ready in ambush behind the wall would have stopped Hamas bikers in their tracks. Yet Hamas achieved strategic surprise. Existential danger happens when large parts of your armed forces are destroyed. When the nuclear tipped Jericho missiles at Sdot Micha would be taken out in a surprise attack, that would be a real destabilization to the region.

Second, given Hamas extremism and support from Muslim world, there is a risk they could manage to get and use biological/chemical weapons — neomac

Ah, sorry to say this, but I've heard this so many times this lurid narrative during the war on terror. But let's think about this.

Biological weapons, really? I wonder which people have more safety measure to deal with HAMASCOVID+, the Israelis and their efficient health sector or the Palestinians now starving to death?

Then chemical weapons? So Hamas have their made at home rockets, which have a tiny warhead. Now filling that up (which would likely kill more Hamas fighters when making them), but what would be the purspose? To freak out the first responders coming to a scene of a rocket attack? Besides, the rockets can go wildly offcourse and aren't precision weapons in any way. And chemical weapons aren't simply very efficient. That's why they haven't been used much after WW1. The real way would pour some nerve gas in the water system of a big city, if you really want many casualties.

Yet how does this help Hamas? That Bibi's administration has more credibility when saying that they are human animals that one cannot negotiate with? That the media would be even more fixated on the terrorist attacks and turn a blind eye to the response of more intensified ethnic cleansing? That the US and the West would be more firmly on the side of Isreal?

Deadly terrorist strikes are usually made to get a complacent actor to lash out in revenge and get itself stuck in a war it cannot win. That was the whole idea with Al Qaeda specifically saying that Americans and American civilians are a worthy viable target. It got the tiny cabal noticed. Unfortunately for them the US didn't bomb Mecca and Medina and didn't even break up ties with Saudi-Arabia (from where the vast majority of the 9/11 terrorist came from). But Hamas has already gotten Israel to lash out with the October 7th attack.

But if you want to believe that Hamas and the Palestinians supporting Hamas is this rabid death cult who hate democracy and want everybody to be dead, including all Palestinians, then there's not much to argue with you. Because obviously it just then repeating the mantra we heard so many time during the War on Terrorism.

Third, Hamas is not a relatively isolated threat (as the Basque or IRA terrorism were). Indeed, it can easily combine with anti-Zionist threats coming from incumbent hostile forces (states and jihadist groups) around Israel, which also may have territorial demands over Israel as history has shown. Besides if Iran’s race for nuclear weapons succeeds, the support to Iran from Russia and China continues, while the support to Israel from the US declines and the normalisation with the Saudis doesn’t succeed fast enough, Israel survival as a state can be very much in danger. The world is changing. — neomac

OK, first of all, nobody else has territorial demands on Israel than the Palestinians naturally, who want their own independent state and Syria, which lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967. Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Saudi-Arabia or Iran don't have territorial demands on Israel.

Secondly, do you understand that with nuclear weapons those hostile to Israel seek nuclear parity? If they have nuclear weapons, perhaps Israel won't so casually bomb them as it does Lebanon. Or do you go with argument that Iranians are these rabid mad mullahs who want to destroy Israel and don't care that millions of Iranians could die in the Israeli counter-attack? Is this the death cult argument again?

Why is it so hard to understand that nations seek nuclear weapons for deterrence reasons, especially when a country hostile to them wanting regime change have them? We already see in Ukraine what happens when one country that has ambitions over another one's territory has nuclear weapons and the other one hasn't.

What actual solutions do you have in mind? — NOS4A2

I think we've already had this discussion when it was current. Starting from the fact that if you make an impenetrable border, then you'll move people to come on dingies and whatever ships from the Gulf coast or the Pacific.

You have to have a far more multifaceted approach than a wall. Starting from things like coordination among officials, creating a policy that does has general support, not one which will create such opposition that you start talking about Sanctuary Cities. But for that you have to have actual leadership skills, not just be a good demagogue inventing fancy slogans like "builiding a wall and Mexico will pay for it".

Didn’t Finland start building a big fence just recently? — NOS4A2

To show argue my point, let's delve into this.

You have to start with the fundamentals. First, people don't immigrate to Finland from Russia or via Russia from Third World countries into Finland. It isn't either a viable natural way to come to the EU. There is no chronic shortage of work force in Finland as there is in for example in California, where even with one million unemployed, a worker shortage persists.

Second, the "migrant crisis" on the borders have been artificially created by Russia. Journalists have reported how officials have given assistance to the migrants and naturally the most obvious reason is that when the migrants have been interviewed, they have given a unison story of how the FSB has gone through construction sites in Moscow and told them that now there's an opportunity to go into the EU. Finland has seen this, the officials and politicians understand this, to talk about it isn't creating a political turmoil because the older pro-Kremlin politicians have been silenced or have changed their attitudes towards Russia.

The response wasn't only to "build a fence". The response of Finland was to shut down the border to everybody. Nobody comes over the border or goes to Russia, not Finns or Russians either. If you were a Russian living in Finland, you have to go to Russia through another country. Also you can't even apply for refugee status at the border. They simply won't let you in. The border was totally quiet, I've seen it with my own eyes. (Building a fence is a minor issue to simply closing the border, don't you think?)

Above all, the parties did this in agreement. The opposition wasn't against it. Hardly any opposition to the actions was noticeable in the media or in the political discourse. Also the EU understands the Finnish position. Finland hasn't been tagged out as a reckless country for closing their borders. The case of Russia using migrants and asylum seekers as a way of a hybrid attack was clear cut to everybody.

So actually, Finland is a perfect example of democracies having the ability to close their borders quickly and not create a huge political turmoil in the process. (The border is scheduled to open 14th of the next month and they'll look if Russia will continue it's hybrid attacks.)

And here's the real problem with Trump. Trump supporters all love that he irritates the other side with his rhetoric and actions. But in order to shut the border, you need a lot more leadership skills than a mere slogan and a stupid fixation on structures that even when working, is only a small detail in a far larger complex effort. Yes, you can argue that you have a border problem. But hardly anything is done to unite the people into looking at the problem. And then there comes the obvious question:

Is Trump the kind of guy that will talk to the opposition, get them to tow the rope together? Is he capable of persuading people beyond his base?

No.

The great demagogue has little if any leadership skills. And he won't compromise because it might look bad for his base. His four years prove that as his administration was far more chaotic than anything we had seen and his future administration will be so. Now he will have the Republican A-team right from the start, but Trump being Trump and as he has already been POTUS, I assume he will start to gather sycophants and yes-men around him. He will not, for example, go with the idea as previously to ask the military who are the best generals.

Biden ended the Trump’s national emergency and the border wall construction on his first day in office. Now he’s dealing with a crisis at the border. Now the crisis is the biggest problem facing America, according to public opinion, costing the tax-payer more than it would have cost to build the wall. — NOS4A2

Trump couldn't even get the wall built. That's how bad he is. And building just a wall which can be circumvented isn't an answer.

But who the fuck cares about actual solutions. "Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it!" is such a great slogan. Why have any discussion on immigration policy when you have such awesome policies like that?

Too late? :chin:
For what too late? You have to speak Spanish now? (Oh, I forgot, you didn't live in the US or did you?)

And I think having a border fence isn't similar to build a big, beautiful, wall. Which Trump was incapable of doing in 4 years.

Besides, the last glimpse on how wonderful, secure and efficient these billion dollar high-tech walls are was seen last year on October 7th.

A new hoax has arisen. This time our credulity implores us to believe Trump threatened the country with a bloodbath should he lose the election. Out of context a clever propagandist could spin it that upon Trump's loss his supporters will break out the ARs and start murdering political opponents. But in context it was blatantly clear that the bloodbath Trump was speaking about was a figurative one, an economic one. — NOS4A2

The real hoax is that we should believe what Trump says, in the first place.

Just like all the talk about building a wall. :snicker:

Or perhaps the US-Mexican border is only figuratively 458 miles long, not the over 1900 miles long.

And of course, as this is Trump, the 458 miles wasn't even a new wall:

The vast majority of the 458 miles were constructed in places where some kind of barrier already existed, but most of the preexisting structures were far less imposing than the new wall and included fencing and rudimentary technical barriers. The total figure also includes what the agency calls “secondary border wall” or sections of wall built behind preexisting barriers that ultimately remained in place.

(The big, beautiful wall, that Trump built.)

Either 7 more months of Trump or 4 years and 7 months of Trump. But either way, he’ll be history soon enough. — Mikie

Imagine this thread ending and passing into obscurity.

And if your young, imagine a time when talking to a new generation of Americans decades from now, when they sincerely ask you: "Trump? Who was Trump?"

Israel has more advanced hardware and technology at hand. — Punshhh

Israeli economy is quite export oriented:

In Israel, exports account for around 40 percent of GDP. Israel main exports are: cut and uncut diamonds, pearls and other precious metals and stones (33 percent of total exports); electrical machinery and equipment, mechanical machinery and appliances, sound and TV recorders and reproducers and computer equipment (22 percent) and chemical products (11 percent). Main export partners are: United States (28 percent of total exports) and Hong Kong (8 percent). Others include: Belgium, United Kingdom, India and China.

So go for example against the diamond trade, which consists a huge part of exports. Something that people wouldn't be offended so much (as they don't buy diamonds themselves often, typically.) Something that isn't seen as harmful (like going after the medical industry). And something that wouldn't hit Silicon Valley as the IT sector in Israel. Even if a large part of the diamond trade is for industrial use, consumer diamonds are crucial. So if someone goes against "Israeli Genocide-diamonds", or something similar, then that might work.

We have to understand the Palestinians themselves don't represent an existential threat to Israel as it has an overwhelming military compared to them. In fact, that ONLY non-state actors have been attacking Israel shows the dominance of the Israeli armed forces. So unlike the narrative cherished by Israel, it's not a tiny country surrounded by mighty Arab armies. Nobody else would dare to attack Israel. And for Bibi, the objective is to make the war a perpetual low intensity conflict, that won't effect the lives of ordinary Israelis. Hence all the talk about mowing the lawn. Hence Israel is really the country where sanctions would have an effect.

The simple fact is that nobody wants to make a negotiated peace. They'll make a negotiated peace only if war or the present course of action will be totally catastrophic. And Netanyahu has dedicated all his life to fight against the peace process.

I think that Bibi will in the end achieve to get Israel into similar international position what Apartheid South Africa was.

Most of those trucks are going to southern Gaza. In the north mass starvation is already well under way. — Punshhh

And we naturally don't have coverage of the events there. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 95 journalists have now been killed in Gaza. To put that to context, about 17 or so have been killed in Ukraine in two years, 28 in all according to CPJ between 1992-2024.

And Israel has let in plenty of aid. Netanyahu claims a 1:1 civilian to terrorist death ratio. — BitconnectCarlos

Plenty? Prior to the war it was about 500 trucks that brought supplies daily into Gaza, which made the case manageable. It's not 500 trucks daily.

(March 7th,2024) 21 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 17 children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The true death toll due to starvation is feared to be much higher as many Palestinians, particularly in northern Gaza, face famine and are almost entirely cut off from the limited humanitarian aid entering Gaza through the southern Rafah crossing.

I think you are the perfect example of how many see this. It's a war where after the shock of Oct 7th the extremist right wing administration saw their opportunity to achieve their delusional goals of ethnic cleansing, and people will go with their delusional agenda and defend their actions... because they want to support Israel after a traumatic terrorist attack. Bibi doesn't have a political solution, he doesn't care. It's just about erasing Gaza and the people off the map in a fashion that would go "unnoticed".

To show how deliberate this is, a report from Oxfam.

(Oxfam, March 17th) Israeli authorities have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators and Oxfam water and sanitation gear all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 km away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza.

The aid originates from many humanitarian organisations around the world and has been rejected over weeks and months as a result of an unpredictable and chaotic regime of approval, scanning and inspection, ultimately controlled by Israeli authorities. The reasons for rejection are not clear, says Oxfam.

In a new report today, Oxfam said this rejected aid was just one example of an overall humanitarian response that Israel has made so dangerous and dysfunctional as to be impossible for aid agencies to work at the speed and scale necessary to save lives, despite best efforts.

Oxfam says that Israel’s government ultimately bears accountability for the breakdown of the international response to the crisis in Gaza. It is failing in its legal responsibilities to the people whose land it occupies and breaking one of the key provisions demanded by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – to boost humanitarian aid in light of the risk of genocide in Gaza.

Oxfam believes that people living in Gaza will suffer mass death from disease and starvation far beyond the current 31,000 Palestinian war casualties unless Israel takes immediate steps to end its violations.

“The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened,” said Oxfam Middle East and North Africa Director, Sally Abi Khalil. “The fact that other governments have not challenged Israel hard enough, but instead turned to less effective methods like airdrops and maritime corridors is a huge red flag, signalling that Israel continues to deny the full potential of better ways to deliver more aid”.

“Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it. We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide,” Abi Khalil said.

Oxfam’s report “Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction” identifies seven crucial ways that Israel is actively preventing the delivery of international aid into Gaza and punishing all Palestinians living in Gaza by deliberately depriving them of life and safety.

The report says that Israeli authorities:
- Only allow aid in via two crossings into Gaza – at Rafah and KarmAbu Salem/Kerem Shalom – despite having total control to open more, thereby creating avoidable choke points for aid and trade.

- Are leading a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average.

- Are routinely and arbitrarily rejecting items of aid as having “dual (military) use”, banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items vital for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit. Much rejected aid must go through a complex “pre-approval” system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt.

- Have cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza, but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.

Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam says the population of Gaza needed five times more than that just to meet their minimum needs. In February, Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in – a 44% reduction from the month before.

Let's put for the denialists these numbers into perspective. Prior to the war there was 500 trucks entering Gaza with food and supplies which was already quite perilous. That would be in 157 days 78 500 trucks into Gaza. That's one fifth.

But of course this means nothing, Oxfam is a front to Hamas or whatever, so perhaps here is a guy that @BitconnectCarlos and others might believe is not taking it's talking points from Hamas or is an anti-semite. Hopefully they'll listen to what the US secretary of state says, before trolling that there's "plenty of aid getting in".

I see Bernie as a kind of extension of occupy, which was more clearly populist and I at least think it's worth recognising a spectrum of populism with what I call power populism and what you see as populism proper the most virulent form of the phenomenon. — Baden

I think Bernie has been in Congress since the 1990's and is so old that he participated as a young man in the civil rights movement.

Yet Occupy Wall Street was surely populist. The Occupy Movement hardly was looking for a leader, which basically made it disappear, so it really doesn't fit perfectly in the mold of a populist movement. Of course the Tea Party (that started originally from Ron Paul's campaign) was also populist. As this following venn diagram from years ago shows:



Yet the division between the left and the right is so successful that Americans didn't notice that both were against the obvious corruption that happened during the financial crisis. And Ron Paul, just like Bernie (or people like wasn't a populist. Both are quite OK trying to use the democratic system and understand they aren't the majority view.

If some Houdini of a politician can join both leftist populist and right-wing populism, that's it. Can break up firm political institutions very, very quickly.

The easy part is of course to notice the obvious things that are wrong, the more difficult what to do about. Yet populism has the answer that we've know seen again and again: Vote for us, and we'll fix it! Yep, that's enough that you have to say. It's enough because explaining lengthily how you will do something isn't the populist way. It's short, snappy sentences that people can easily remember and chant. Being undiplomatic and rude to others to show you aren't an appeaser, but tough.

Cause populism gets behind an ostensibly moral cause, could be worker's rights, climate change, corporate reform, free speech, etc. Or it could be a combination of these. But essentially a cause populist should be driven by and be able to articulate an ideological goal that determines a coherent set of responsibilities that their leader is bound to carry out while in office (and be judged by his or her ability to do so). The social framework is situated in the idea of the building of a better society by removing special interests in the establishment that have heretofore prevented this from happening.

I think Bernie Sanders is a good example of a cause populist. — Baden

(Is Bernie a populist? He might be popular, but I'm not so sure he is a populist. But let's keep this more to the lines of political philosophy.)

Here I think it's important to make the separation with ordinary "non-populist" political movements and a populist movement. Let's say your objective is workers rights or tackling climate change. Here the issue is that you have a political agenda that you want to implement and basically anybody that agrees with your demands is an ally in this cause, even if in other policies they might not be. This is how democracy should work. Those who are against your climate change initiatives or even the corporations that oppose your work reforms aren't a class of people...because they hold these views. People understand that there's lobby groups that are against your ideas and promote different views. To say these groups exist isn't in my view cause populism: in a democracy you surely will find people that have different opposing ideas to yours. Above all, your focus is your agenda, not being against those that oppose certain people. Hopefully you see the difference here with a specific corporate lobby group and the people against the elite juxtaposition.

You really have to be Marxist and assume the juxtaposition of the proletariat against the capitalists and this to be part of the struggle against capitalism to have similar ideas as the populist. The juxtaposition between the proletariat and the capitalists is quite similar to present day populism, even if naturally Marxism has lot more than this populist idea. You can also see the obvious populism in German Nazism.

I see power populism on the other hand as resting on the promise of power without responsibility, of the resetting of power dynamics as an end in itself with the audience being those who believe that power has been wielded irresponsibly and unjustly against them. The social framework of the power populist is society not as a cooperative among interested parties but as an arena where one party must dominate (and whoever currently dominates is the elite). But the wish of the power populist is not really to rid society of elites, but to become their replacement (an elite by any other name). And the means are virtually irrelevant. Nor does the leader have any particular responsibilities except to wield power against those who his followers see as previously wielding it against them. — Baden

In my view your definition of Power populism is what populism really is. Cause populism is more like a classic political movement, which naturally has those against it that are happy with current situation and the present status quo.

As the populist is against the existing power elite, the game isn't as in normal politics. If your are pushing an agenda (workers rights, climate change etc.), you would be OK with the elite if the elite accepts your agenda and goes along with it. But as the populist starts from the idea that the people are being downtrodden by the existing elite, then that elite has to go. There's no other answer. Drop dead isn't a constructive proposal to reach some consensus. It's not about individual policies, it's about that evil group of people themselves. And replacing them the populist movement simply have to guard against the old elite from taking power again. And if you think the democratic system doesn't work, the legislature, the judiciary system and the executive branch are all corrupt, then the easy solution is authoritarianism. You see simply democracy as the reason why everything is so bad.

So it's no wonder that populists just love conspiracy theories. The bigger, the nastier, the better.

True values arise from the culture of individual societies, they are relative and must be linked to each other in a globalized world by being translated like languages. — Wolfgang

And this should be noted when these values are excepted by for example by members of the United Nations. Many members aren't Western, don't share similar history and have different starting points for how they understand their society from the way Western individualism understands societies. And that does say a lot.

We often point out our differences and remind ourselves how different others are, but many things are indeed universal. Perhaps the error we make is that when these values are universal, we then deduce that our understanding of these rights and where they come from is "universal" too. Not so. North Korea starts from a different ideology, China starts with a different ideology and Muslim countries naturally start from the faith which isn't Christian.

Back on Jul 27, 2022, he posted the Kremlin's plan for Ukraine according to him: — jorndoe

Correction, do note it's not the "Kremlins plan" what he says:

(by Google translate): In the brain of the President of Ukraine, damaged by psychotropic substances, the following picture of the bright future of his country arose (Fig. 1).
Western analysts believe that this will actually be the case (Fig. 2).

Which still is extremely delusional. Haven't heard anyone in the West purposing that Poland, even Romania, would take large parts of Ukraine. The only theoretical discussion has been about Moldova and Romania, which share a lot.

It just shows the thinking of the Kremlin of how borders can be so easily changed. Or simply the media tactic of confusing Russians themselves.

Well these other pre-2008 things are not really vis-a-vis Ukraine, it's seems closer to reading tea leaves. — boethius

On the contrary, they show what Russian foreign policy in it's near abroad is like. And shows the reason why the Eastern European countries especially the Baltic countries wanted to join NATO and were quite correct in joining NATO.

I'm arguing that if Putin had designs on Ukraine since 1999 or even 1991 or even before for that matter, that NATO expansion played into his designs and provided him the pretext to consolidate domestic support. — boethius

(Before 1991 you did have the Empire intact with the Soviet Union.)

Boethius, nobody is contradicting you here. I think everybody agrees with this. I've stated myself years ago before 2014 that NATO enlargement was the threat number 1. in Russian military doctrine.

If there was no reason to do so there was a lot of business and money in dealing with the West so it would be a difficult sell to other Russian elites as well as the public. — boethius

Putin doesn't care about international business and economics. That has been obvious for quite a while. He has made his career from starting wars, actually. I think he is quite happy place with Russia transforming to a war-state.

The idea Zelensky has tried to negotiate more than the Finns in the Winter War (what I was talking about) is completely absurd. — boethius

Well, Russia didn't start talks about aquiring parts of Ukraine as in the case of Stalin with Finland, if that is your point. But otherwise it's quite different. The Finns didn't start negotiations with Russians in the start of the Winter War, only when the military situation was desperate. Just ask yourself then: when did the Finns have negotiations with Russians in 1941, 1942 or 1943? Zelensky has tried negotiate with the Russians, several times. In fact, his campaign for the Ukrainian presidency started with trying to negotiate with the Russians, which he attempted before the Russian invasion. So your comment is very absurd, the typical Ukraine bashing we hear from you.

2) populism is not restricted to the politicians who get labelled this way. In the US both Republicans (who were career politicians and not considered fringe by most) and Democrats (also having those characteristics) have run with significant degrees of implied or stated populist rhetoric. — Bylaw

There naturally is both right wing populism and leftist populism. Perfect example of far left populism in our time is Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

the people running as populists are part of the elites. They may claim outsiderness, but at most their sort of black sheep of the elites. Trump and Clinton for example have been attending the same events and power groups for decades. So, you get a slightly to significantly loose cannon elite member when you vote for a populist. Why is this so? Well, you just can't be some kind of (merely seeming) outsider with any chance of winning without having tremendous power and connections. But given the myth of outsiderness, now you have a mandate to make changes, sweeping and deep changes. Well, that's autocratic. Of course, it could be a benevolent dictatorship and there are a few rare instances where people came in made big changes and allowed other factions to take over when voted in. But it's rare. — Bylaw

I agree. The populist leader has to create the myth around him (or her) that he either has had this awakening or that from the start he has been fighting against these elites. As you said, the black sheep are in the perfect position here as they have nothing to lose, they are already out from the 'in-crowd'. And it surely gives that personal drive for the revenge against them.

But let's think this through, because it comes to core of populist belief and narrative, the idea of the evil elites and the good people. So, do we want our political leaders be unexperienced, even not well educated? Are those really traits that we want from our leaders?

Because if a person is very experienced in leadership roles, he or she is surely part of the elite, isn't it so? Even if the person is highly educated, seen the World, has studied the problems the society has and so forth, aren't those kind of persons also part of the elite?

For the populist, they surely are. The only saving grace can be if the person is onboard with the populist cause. Then suddenly, they are accepted, because there against the elites. And here you can see just why populism leads to authoritarianism and to leader cults. Even if we have democracy, our society is a meritocracy and specialization of work. Meritocracy creates elites, just like a division system in sports creates the sporting elite, where the highest league has professional athletes and the 5th division teams have people whose hobby is sports. Now if you would mix the players of all the divisions meaning that the best and the worst players would be distributed in all teams randomly, then ask yourself, would you be willing to spend money to see such great 'democratic' sports games?

Since populism at it's core is against this specialization that structurally causes elites to be formed, it has a permanent glitch in it's thinking as populism is a prisoner of it's own narrative. It's against elites and sees everything from this focus. You might argue, that this isn't something important, but it is. Because once the populist leadership is in power and if it fails, gets clogged in the democratic process with dealing in parliamentary politics, the opposition in the movement can always cry wolf and say that the leadership has betrayed it's goal and is now simply part of the elite that it once was fighting against.

Elites can and many times are corrupt and incapable and don't worry much if anything about other people, but the fact remains that in politics there's always going to be an elite. States and societies are simply too large for anything else. As @Tom Storm above said the obvious:

From my perspective anyone who can be in a position to become president is an elite. Left and right mainstream are just differently wings of the same neoliberal elite. — Tom Storm

This is why the narrative of populism is so hollow. It really becomes a problem when the populist movement gets to hold the power. Who is then the evil elite? Either populists then have to go with the idea that the evil elite are foreigners, the international conspiracy of the bankers,
or something like that, and now it the populist country against the elites, or they have to simply to fortify their position against the elites now driven off from power, but scheming always for the ouster of the populists. Or likely do both.

The problem is that in this juxtaposion of people against the elites, there is no room for democratic consensus, of making coalitions with other parties. Populists have an enemy. You don't team up with the enemy. Hence democracy isn't the way forward. Authoritarianism is. It's a battle.

5) And then we want to get rescued by a strong daddy (or, now, potentially, mommy). — Bylaw

And here the seductive populist narrative works very well. With it's brash rhetoric populism sounds so different and the supporter of populism thinks he or she is making changes to politics.

Among other issues, there is one which I find philosophically deep and troublesome: namely, the notion of sovereignty as it is shaped by the Westphalian system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_system) — neomac

The Westphalian system is the backbone of the international order. Or it should be. Here many would point out how much the sovereignty is breached by the US and the West. I think the simple fact is here that when a sovereign state loses or is incapacitated from securing it's borders, other sovereign states morph into vultures around it. Perhaps they aren't interested in the country itself, but they are interested if other nations try to get a hold in them. There are some many examples of this: Yemen, DRC, Libya etc. Especially what is worrisome that in the case of the Libyan civil war, the backers of different sides ought have to been allies! This is very damaging to the US as it's so-called allies don't act in a cohesive way, but against another. Luckily the situation in Ukraine is still clear and simple and Western Europe is committed to the support of Ukraine. The real question is the US.

BTW how are the Finns taking the recent Russian threats: — neomac

Well, the border has been quite empty from Russian froops since 2022 for some reason. Finns were more worried about the refugee swarms, but that seems to have calmed down. There wasn't any confusion this time as Russia had already used the approach (sending refugees and migrants to the border) years ago. Then people didn't understand what was happening. Now they did and simply closed the border.

Maybe it's odd that the United States hasn't had more populist movements? — BC

There are reasons for this. Many ideas about America that Americans have have been against it.

On the other hand, the elite has successfully convinced 'the people' that there are no elites (against whom to fight). 'The People' rule! God bless the United States of America!" — BC

I agree. This is something that is drilled into the minds of Americans of the exceptionality of America and the American dream. You should know just how difficult is for many Americans to talk about there being classes in America. Some think of the word as being similar as "caste" and start a monologue of how the US is different from other nations.

Then there's the unique history.

Of course there's a simple reason why the "founding fathers" didn't see themselves as part of an elite. That time the elite was the aristocracy, which had inherited it's rule thanks to feudalism. And not many of them had immigrated to America. I think those that had been governors had titles and hence were part of the aristocracy, but these people weren't usually on the side of the rebels. Perhaps it would have been different if feudalism had come with the British.

Then there's the American admiration of the rich, especially the "self made man". This can be seen clearly in American politics where billionaires just being billionaires get admiration for the "obvious talent" in getting rich. Mr Trump wouldn't had at all that support if he had been just a guy with 10 million dollars (which he might have in net wealth or something far less than he says). Obviously you can see this from the fact that richest women don't get such a say as the majority of them have got their wealth in either a divorce or their husband dying. I think only the 7th wealthiest woman in the US has made her money herself.

Also the whole idea of the "American Dream" and the focus on individuality actually has worked in favor of the people accepting the elite. Americans do listen to their billionaires and take them seriously. And if some are foreign born (like Elon Musk), that just shows that the US is still the "land of opportunity".

Of course now things are little by little changing. And I think this is the reason why populism has only know got a firm place in American politics. The Overton window has changed.

Thanks @Philosophim!

So to the extent there was/is a Western failure to support Ukraine adequately this may have less to do with ethic of Western decision makers than with the structural problems of Western decision making as such. And what makes your argument still pro-Putin is again its hypocritical purpose of morally discrediting the West, even if the lack of resolve and cohesion in the West is not inherently immoral and it stems also from people like you whose prejudicial distrust over Western institutions amplifies lack of resolve and cohesion. — neomac

One of the basic problems is that there isn't similar case like Ukraine when the West has supported one side in an conflict or had it's own conflicts. Invasion of Iraq was quite dubious, done with false arguments and little understanding of how unstable Iraq was. Yugoslavian civil war was indeed a civil war. And Serbia shows that even if Serbians ousted Milosevic, they weren't at all happy with the US after NATO had bombed their country. Yet the assault on Ukraine 2022 is a clear cut example of one country attacking another with Putin giving even more delusional arguments (neonazis controlling Ukraine and hence a denazification of Ukraine) than the WMD argument for invading Iraq.

What we should note is that if Putin would have opted just for Crimea and not tried to instill revolution in all Russian areas (which didn't happen in Kharkiv or Odessa, but only in the Donbass), it might have worked. We could have been fine with that as Europe was already at easy with a "frozen conflict" in Ukraine. Yet February 24th 2022 changed all that. Now it's quite simple.

Yet some have this idea of "forever wars" and want to see it totally differently with the US as the perpetrator of the war. It starts with just focusing on the West or on the US and then not thinking of anyone else being an independent agent with their own objectives. Hence all the flak against Ukraine, when actually there rarely is a more simple case for supporting a country against it's aggressor. Ukraine is fighting for us.

The tensions started in 2008 when NATO declared Ukraine and Georgia were on the path to NATO membership. Russia's first response was to invade Georgia. — boethius

Again it is insufficient and illogical to start viewing these conflicts from 2008.

Both Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia conflicts had started well before 2008. So again, it's far more proper to start with 1991-1992 South Ossetian war (and btw. there was in 1918-1920 a Georgian-Ossetian conflict with Ossetians siding with the Russian Bolsheviks). In Abkhazia the war was fought 1992-1993, where again the Russians supported the rebels.

The similar strategy seen in Moldova (Transnistria) and Ukraine (the Donbass) could be already seen here. When the pro-Russians insurgents were losing it, suddenly Russia intervened and put "peacekeepers" to make it a frozen conflict. Just like prior to 2022 invasion the Russian army came to help if the rebels were in trouble.

And this also questions your idea that all this started in 2008 and with NATO enlargement. It didn't start then. Just as it didn't start in 2008 with the attempts to make Crimea Russian. Those ideas started basically as early as Ukraine came independent. Far before the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Only when Putin came to power started the annexations and wars after Putin had defeated the Chechens. For Putin, going to war had been a very successful endeavor until 2022 (as the last war he started is still ongoing).

The facts are NATO expands towards Russia all while referring to Russia as their "competitor" and "enemy" and so on, and Russia has been reacting to that expansion. — boethius

Again this delusional rhetoric from you. We've already have had this discussion.

It's very questionable from you to sideline the Partnership for Peace, the "new NATO" that focused in fighting terrorism, the Cold War being over, the various times of "resetting" the US-Russian relations done by George W Bush, Obama.

The critical pivot point was 2014 when there was a coup in Kiev and Russia annexed Crimea. — boethius

There was a very popular revolution in Ukraine, not a coup how ever you try to point out Nuland and others talking to the Ukrainians. And in your narrative you totally forget the important elections afterwards where the far right lost their seats in Parliament. That kind of example how Ukraine has improved it's democracy isn't good for your narrative. But great that you at least admit that Russia annexed Crimea. Not that Crimean people opted to join by referendum Russia after Crimean volunteers (who looked and still look like Russian VDV paratroopers and special forces) occupied the Crimean parliament and other installations.

We Finns did the exact opposite of Zelensky: we had a diplomatic plan and used military force as leverage to get the best deal feasible in the circumstances; a deal that was both a surrender and admitting culpability for the war and repaying massive reparations to the Soviet Union — boethius

Exactly the opposite? I disagree. Zelensky has tried actually to negotiate far more than Finns did. Ukraine is far larger than Finland and in a totally different situation. Besides, Finland didn't start peace negotiations in 1941, 1942 or 1943. And this is quite logical: when there's imminent collapse (in 1940) and a hopeless situation in 1944.

Ukraine's situation is not hopeless. Although Russian propaganda tries to promote this, just as the idea of Europe being "tired" of the war and ready to throw Ukraine under the bus.

(↑ not new in the thread) — jorndoe

Many things aren't new in the thread. Some want repeat over and over their version of events prior to the war. That we discussed hundreds of pages ago.

Because there's not much else for them to say. Other than Russia is strong and the West should capitulate and let Ukraine take care of itself. (Which means Russians taking care of it)

I have zero problem discussing other people's responsibility in other countries independent of the West's policy vis-a-vis whatever it is, including Putin's responsibility, it's just not my main focus. — boethius

That has come obvious to others, yes. :smirk:

1. Maybe it was Putin's intention was to invade Ukraine all along, there's just no evidence for it. — boethius

LOL! :grin:

Soo... how many other countries does he call "artificial" and being an integral part of Russia. How many other countries Russian spread far before maps of parts of it belonging to Russia? Like this from year 2015.



Putin has been very consistent. Yes, he has also mentioned that NATO enlargement is what he doesn't like, but the annexation of Crimea and further the other oblasts that he has now annexed into Russia (even they all aren't in Russian held territories) simply just show he wasn't kidding with all his references of the historic connection of Russia and Ukraine. And then you say there's wasn't no evidence. Hilarious! Perhaps later we can look at this thread and see how ingrained Putinism and Pro-Putinists were.

2. Ukraine simply cannot win a long war with Russia and the only way to even have a chance to do that involves extreme harm to Ukraine. — boethius

Just like in the case of my country, the real question is if Russia cannot take over the country it attacked. What then? Well, then Russia simply admits defeat, like it did against the Japanese. Or the Poles. Or in a way, with us Finns making this kind of Peace deal without annexation or creating the country to be a satellite state. Likely Ukrainians have no dreams of the war ending with an Ukrainian military parade on the Red Square. But please, do promote the vast power of Russia here, if you want.

the only reasonable conclusion is that the West should (especially before or at the very start of the war), if we cared about Ukraine (just not enough to send our own troops), used the West's immense negotiating leverage to workout the best deal possible for Ukraine. — boethius

And that naturally should happen from an advantage point. Hence military support of Ukraine should continue as long as the Ukrainians want and are willing to fight.

As we speak Russia has achieved air superiority over the front line — boethius

The fact is still that it doesn't have the air superiority that it should have taken in a few days.

The relatively stable and friendly relationship between Russia and the West in 2008? :chin: — Tzeentch

At least for Finland, but also for other European countries...yes relatively stably and friendly relationship.

Compared to now, of course.

I point out my primarily responsibility: Western policy. — boethius

And that policy has to start with the real situation. Not the imagined one where everything revolves around the West and it's actions or failures.

I think you're underestimating Bibi. He does care about what happens next and what happens next is annexation. That's the goal and it has always been that; they don't care about the consequences or what anybody else thinks or believes, because the world, the UN and everybody is against them in their self-proclaimed victimhood. — Benkei

They went with the annexation of the Golan Heights, but I think the annexation of either Gaza or the West Bank will do quite much damage to the Israeli reputation. South Africa style sanctions are a possibility then, especially if large scale ethnic cleansing happens. I think the mood is already changing in the US. The actions now taken do have effects. For example prior to the war in Lebanon in the early 1980's there was lot of support for Israel in Finland and the Finns look at Israel being in a similar situation that they had been before. Then came the massacres of Shabra and Shatila, and many Finnish peacekeepers seeing how Israel conducted it's war in Lebanon.

Yet it's a possibility that Bibi and this administration could try to do this: when faced with questions of why October 7th happened and facing corruption charges even before that, it may well be that Bibi counts on getting a great victory that will make him a hero of Israel. What better way would be to finalize the Likud party's objective of an Israel from the river to the Sea and the name of "West Bank" replaced universally with "Judea and Samaria"?

The core question is what is the best policy to manage the situation. For me I am primarily interested in Western policy, as that's where I live and the policy I'm responsible for. — boethius

Yeah. Now you gave the Chomsky refute.

So not much interest in Ukraine, Ukrainian history, Ukrainian people, Putin's fixation in dubious history and the role Ukraine has for Russia or Russian imperialism and so on.

Because you don't live their. So we have to ONLY concentrate of errors that the West made. :smirk:

Well, we don't live there, yet we are talking...so I'll try to answer.

How is this in anyway related to what I explain? — boethius

You won't even understand? Who attacked? Who? I think you do understand it as you continue:

Now, if you want to take this premise of Ukraine as an innocent defenceless maiden, I am the only person in this entire discussion that even entertained the idea of putting NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine before the war started (or, more precisely, larger war starting in 2022), and also made clear I'd be for such a move if our goal was indeed to "protect democracy" (also, if it worked and avoided war and nuclear exchange, that would be good too and I explained how that was achievable using common sense, negotiation leverage and the "strength" we keep hearing is Putin's only language).

The reason why Western institutions and talking heads dismissed this option out of hand is because the only way it's workable is in combination with a negotiation strategy to prevent the war actually happening. — boethius

I disagree.

The real reason was that they simply couldn't fathom the idea that Putin would go and invade Ukraine even more than it had done 2014. That's it!

All Minsk agreements and their failures had just put them to think that "Oh well, this is one of those frozen wars" as we know from various places. They have their own domestic politics, so they don't give much thought to a conflict before it actually happens. The only thing they were giving Russia was assurances that Ukraine won't be a NATO member. Naturally they cannot give that in writing, because that would go against the NATO charter of it being open to countries. But Germany said that they would be firm in not letting Ukraine into NATO.

However, if the goal really was to protect Ukrainian sovereignty then you'd certainly consider very carefully the idea of sending troops into Ukraine in a "escalate to deescalate" strategy (that you've repeated yourself many times the basic logic of how that works). Even moreso if you thought Ukraine a defenceless innocent fair maiden. — boethius

Escalate to de-escalate is a horrible idea! I've emphasized it because it's a really, really, bad idea. Because what can the Escalate to de-escalate give justification? A Pre-emptive attack! You see, the idea comes from the narrow view that other side would behave logically to your illogical escalation. Well, it can simply create a shock that justifies more escalation.

And which European country would have then put forces to Ukraine when the Ukrainian government was downplaying (at least publicly) the threat of a Russian invasion. Oh, the Putin lovers would have had a field day with that one!

The reason it was not considered at all, just throw a little WWIII thought-terminating cliché of why that's impossible (to go with the thought-terminating clichés of why sending heavy weapons "wasn't possible" ... it was just "no, no, no, of course note, don't be silly" ... until they send those exact weapons systems), is because the policy is to have a war and not protect Ukraine. — boethius

Umm, what? That countries took Russian threats of nuclear war seriously and are timid then to back up Ukraine isn't because of the nuclear threats, but because they want war and not to protect Ukraine?

Now your are starting again with the similar rhetoric "She obviously was so stunning, that her beauty sent mix messages. So it wasn't the rapists fault."

Oh poor, poor, POOR Russia. All the time everybody else wanting it to start wars. How wicked from others. :snicker:

In order to ensure on having a war you need to calibrate between two scenarios:

1. Russia winning outright, which ends the war, and therefore more arms and heavier weapons systems are needed to prevent this scenario whenever your risk threshold of this happening is surpassed.

2. Ukraine winning outright, which may result in Russia simply retreating to their borders and ending the war that way and taking the L or then resorting to nuclear weapons and so also ending the war, just in a different way. — boethius

That's the most lurid thought for a long time. But of course, as in your alternative universe the West has planned to get Russia to attack Ukraine (just like the beautiful women sent mix message with her stunning beauty), of course the only viable objective for the West is to have a perpetual war. Because...what else would the evil West want? (Hence with deduce that beautiful women want to be raped by rapists.)

Ok, say you're right.

Well, what did we do about it? — boethius

Or do about it?

It's still going on, the war you know.

I think it's up the Ukrainians to decide. They have tried to open negotiations. Putin still wants more territory from them and still the ludicrous denazification is there, so I'd say to continue supporting Ukraine until otherwise.

Likely Putin is still happy with the war economy that he has. If he gets to hold the land that he has, he can put is as a victory, especially saying that he was fighting all the West. Perhaps then Putin is then in his happy place, worthy to be remembered with Peter the Great, Stalin etc. A great Russian leader.

Surely in 1941 the US did not have a postwar plan either. Yet it still went to war. — Moses

Yet they understood war in the Clausewitzian manner. And in 1945 they did have one: for example the US left the Emperor alone. It didn't have an objective to take Japan over and make it part of the US. And it didn't plan to move the Japanese out of their Islands and make the place a resort for Americans and build there a new America for Americans.

Remember that the Japanese surrender without one single US marine on the main Japanese Islands. To show this, let's just start with the actual Instrument of Surrender that the Japanese signed. Here it is in it's entirety:

INSTRUMENT OF SURRENDER

We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government, and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britain on 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.

We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated.

We hereby command all Japanese forces wherever situated and the Japanese people to cease hostilities forthwith, to preserve and save from damage all ships, aircraft, and military and civil property and to comply with all requirements which may be imposed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by agencies of the Japanese Government at his direction.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to issue at once orders to the Commanders of all Japanese forces and all forces under Japanese control wherever situated to surrender unconditionally themselves and all forces under their control.

We hereby command all civil, military, and naval officials to obey and enforce all proclamations, orders, and directives deemed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to be proper to effectuate this surrender and issued by him or under his authority and we direct all such officials to remain at their posts and to continue to perform their non-combatant duties unless specifically relieved by him or under his authority.

We hereby undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government, and their successors to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith, and to issue whatever orders and take whatever actions may be required by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers or by any other designated representative of the Allied Powers for the purpose of giving effect to that Declaration.

We hereby command the Japanese Imperial Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters at once to liberate all allied prisoners of war and civilian internees now under Japanese control and to provide for their protection, care, maintenance, and immediate transportation to places as directed.

The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.

Signed at TOKYO BAY, JAPAN at 0904 I on the SECOND day of SEPTEMBER, 1945

(I left the signatories away)

Do note one important thing which is in the last paragraph which it put in bold. Both the Emperor and the Japanese Goverment survive. They just have to obey the victors on "proper to effectuate these terms of surrended". But Japan exists.

This is the reason why the Clausewitzian idea of war being the extensions of politics and after war normal politics continue is so crucial here. This is the reason why you have a real problem when you don't have given politica thought what to do next. You don't even want to have any piece of paper like the above, because those theoretically signing this kind of document, you want the to be killed, erased. Punished.

Let's remember what Clausewitz said:

Politics is the womb in which war develops. War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering. War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter. War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Here that "war is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter" is what is forgotten. You simply don't have war against terrorism. That's just a slogan, just like "war on poverty" or "war on drugs". Then there's the actual policies you implement to make it more than just a slogan. And to do any of those actions, you have to think a bit more than just to declare wars.

And that's why this whole thing will backfire on Israel. As stated by many respected observers, Netanyahu lacks a political objective.

Similarly 10/7 may lead to something much greater, but if so the fault will not solely lie on Israel. And in any case some fights are just. — Moses

A greater disaster, likely. Perhaps Bibi want's to have that moment of declaring victory, but is it going to be that. really?

The idea of "Hamas did a terrible thing, so they have to be destroyed" doesn't at all take into consideration what happens then. And people thinking so (that it's punishment time and Hamas simply has to be destroyed and nothing else should be done) don't actually care a fuck what happens next. They don't care how many Palestinians will be killed, they don't care what the impact to the whole neighborhood it will have. They don't care that Arabs are very unhappy what is happening (so that's that for the peace process). They don't care about just what those Palestinians will think if the survive the war. They don't care either how Israel will look after this.

It really makes a difference how you fight a war. Just compare how the Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan and how the US fought in Afghanistan and look up the differences in civilian casualties. There's a huge difference. Because you could try destroy Hamas with similar operations yet keep food flowing to the area. You could say "Hamas tried to kill as many Israelis as possible, women, children and babies, and we will fight Hamas but not like Hamas and support the civilians, even if they support Hamas."

It would be easy, as I've stated again and again that fight like the Americans did in these cases in Iraq, while fighting supply food to the civilians. But that won't happen.

This because the idea in "punishment" that "humanity" would be somehow a sign of "weakness". The idea of punishment start from the hallucination that when you show undeterred strength, the other side will be cowed so much that it will stop it's fight and give up it's objectives. This crazy idea is similar to Hollywood movies teaching us that if the Hero roughs up and beats the bad guy, he will spill his beans and tells where the nuclear weapon is. Somehow the scene where the bad guy roughs up and beats the Hero, the viewer is confident that this won't happen. And so is in the case of punishing Hamas of giving a powerful message to others not to do this or otherwise. Somehow the believers in the punishment narrative believe this when it's their enemy, but they wouldn't think so if it would be the enemy using the same idea back at them.

And furthermore, I think the Israeli administration sees this as a "window of opportunity" to deal a blow to all enemies and thus they have to milk the traumatic experience of the attack and promote hard views and idea of punishment. Like after Rafah, then starts the war against Hezbollah. There at least the IDF can say that Hezbollah hasn't retreated to the Litani river. If Israel want's to refer to international agreements in the first place.

Why does everything the West and Ukraine do need to be justified by "Ukrainian agency"? Because it's clearly turned out to be terrible decisions that have completely wrecked Ukraine. The situation is really bad. — boethius

Why was the women beautiful in the first place? Her fault. She had the rape coming!

Sorry, no matter what you say and try obstinately push the Russian rhetoric and Russian talking points: Russia wrecked Ukraine. It attacked in 2014, it attacked Ukraine in 2022.

Populism is, essentially, plebeian mentality, and plebeian mentality is antidemocratic, simplistic, black-and-white, thus authoritarian.

It's not that the elites would have become corrupted; it's that (also because of democarcy), plebeian people, ie. people from low socio-economic classes have been able to attain positions of power (in politics, economy, education, art). These people have probably accumulated wealth and obtained higher education degrees, but they still are plebeians at heart. — baker

This is a very interesting point you make, @baker.

Plebeian mentality might well be the root of the ideology. Our society, even if there is a democratic republican system, is still very meritocratic. Actually strives to be meritocratic, hence there will be always "the Plebeians". Meritocracy with capitalism creates income inequality, and that is structural, a basic part of simply supply and demand. What we do to erase the worst effects of this inequality is up to the society and the amount of social cohesion the society has. Still, Plebeian mentality won't go away. You will find this kind of thinking in every country, no matter how liberal or libertarian they are.

And when have democracy, it shouldn't be a surprise that actually what people think does matter. Yet if things are generally OK and people are happy, there simply isn't a reason for the juxtaposition and hatred in the way populism tells it. It simply isn't accepted in the public narrative or in the Overton window. Those holding the most radical "Plebeian ideas" simply don't say them aloud as they would be laughed upon.

In a way, populist ideology becomes publicly acceptable. It's the populist politician that changes the Overton window. The populist politician first says something outrageous, which before would have ended a politicians career, and suprisingly to the media that follows politics, he's getting support. And usually it's the media that is bashing him or her that actually makes then people to hear about this new politician. And when you a general dissatisfaction about how things are, these "outrageous" comments are exactly what the dissatisfied want to hear. That he is denounced makes him popular. The denouncement creates the "elite" that is hostile against the people and encourages more to believe in the populism.

And perhaps here is the so-called "elite" formed, because something has been unacceptable in the Overton window, it seems that criticism against breaking the accepted norms becomes "a concentrated effort by the elite to attack the populist". Hence the elite that the populism talks about is formed basically by all those who go to criticize the movement. They are the talking heads, the supporters and the sheeple brainwashed by the "elite".

People are not only not equal, people generally despise the very idea of equality. — baker

Equality in some matters. Legal equality. Equality in voting. Equality with the rights of freedom. Equality in being citizens of our countries.

Not equality in income and wealth as we surely have different kinds of jobs. I can just iddle my time writing here and not work, so why would somebody that works ten times more have equal income?

As I stated above, this inequality cannot be erased away. Only the worst aspects that it might lead can and should be taken care of.

Morally speaking, 10/7 is worse than Pearl Harbor because at least Pearl Harbor was a military target. — BitconnectCarlos

It's telling that you forget the Philippines and the Filipinos. An invasion that started ten hours after Pearl Harbor, lasted until 1945 with half a million to one million Filipinos dying in WW2. This was a pre-emptive attack which a land invasion followed. But that's hardly something you would take notice, because it doesn't fit to the narrative to remind people that actually the US was a colonial power back then.

The behavior of the IDF has been remarkable humane, comparably speaking. — BitconnectCarlos

Of course. Guess we all need a refresher now on what 'comparably speaking' means.

(The Guardian) Israel is facing growing international pressure for an investigation after more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed when desperate crowds gathered around aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday.

Israel said people died in a crush or were run over by aid lorries although it admitted its troops had opened fire on what it called a “mob”. But the head of a hospital in Gaza said 80% of injured people brought in had gunshot wounds.

On Friday, a UN team that visited some of the wounded in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital saw a “large number of gunshot wounds”, UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said.

The hospital received 70 of the dead and treated more than 700 wounded, of whom around 200 were still there during the team’s visit, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.

Are you saying Populism is something like "voting," Basically? — Vaskane

Populism is a political narrative. It surely can be used in any society, but it is part of the political discourse in a democratic system. If people are satisfied (at least to some degree) with the system and there aren't huge political problems, then populism stays on the fringe with a tiny part of the political system. There's always those people who think this way, just as there always are radicals in a democracy.

Populism becoming mainstream tells something about the political environment, which I think the point that @Tzeentch has made.

I think Nietzsche's quote on homogenization of the masses still applies through populism and thus rears conditions to build the strongest of tyrants. — Vaskane

Nations do need some kind of homogenization starting from being equal citizens. Even if patriotism and nationalism have their dark sides, you has to remember that they also connect people who otherwise have little if anything common. It's important for social cohesion.

Yet Pakistan didn’t perform or wasn’t cooperative as required. — neomac

And why is that? Because the state of Pakistan had it's own security agenda, which the Bush administration didn't care a shit about. There were there only for the terrorists ....and either you were with them or against them .And that's why it failed.

In short, if you have the finest hammer in the World, don't start thinking that everything is a nail. Accept that you can use only in limited cases a hammer and you simply have to go with other tools, even if your citizens just desperately want it to be "Hammer time"!

But how clearly wrongheaded did it look the idea of exploiting that "window of opportunity” within Bush administration, back then? — neomac

So clearly wrongheaded that few people including myself saw the error that was being done. All you needed was read a bit. What was telling then was Scott Ritter, who had been part of the weapons inspection team and wrote a little book about there being no WMD program anymore before the invasion. Of course he faced the wrath of the US later and once those bridges are burnt, the only thing to get income is to be Putin's spokesperson.

And since then it was news like a train in the US stopped because someone panicked that there was a Sikh abroad (as obviously a Sikh man is a dangerous muslim terrorist because he has a turban), the message was really evident that American crowd was taking everything in and the Bush administration was milking the traumatic experience. Just like Bibi is doing now in Israel.

I remember very well even in this forum (which had an older version before this) many Americans coming angrily to defend their President on the reasons to go to war in Iraq. He got faulty intel? What could have he otherwise done? Many saw as their civic duty to defend their President on this Forum.

Luckily Trump happened. Trump shattered the stupid idea of "The Prez just got bad intel". Trump crushed Jeb Bush just for being a Bush and told the truth that even the Trump supporter understood it. Hence everyone now that has some knowledge of the facts understand just how active role in promoting the war in Iraq the Vide President and his team had. Members of his team were convicted and would have faced jail if the "Prez" hadn't pardoned them.

True but other societies may also use brute force and other aspects not permitted by democratic means. — Vaskane

And a democracy to function, it ought to have the ability change the individuals that are in power. Violence already means that democracy isn't working.

Violence is something that we shouldn't get to. And this come to my point: if an ideology is confrontational from the start and creates juxtaposition, then it's abuse is easy. Political ideologies have to be viewed from how absolute idiots will take them. Those that ideologies that accept or promote violence are the worst. Marxism is a good example: a communist revolution morphs quite quickly to simply killing the rich. Or those perceived to be rich. After all, if the Capitalist system has to be overthrown violently, doesn't that mean killing people? Many Marxists would disagree, but they aren't the ones with the rifles going house to house to look for the class enemy, usually.

Naturally the present populism doesn't start from such a situation. But basically it has doubts about the whole democratic process. With populism there is this obvious "us" and "them" and "they", where the elite, "they", aren't some specific individuals.

Well, some people are decency-challenged. — jorndoe

When you take the side of the aggressor, you have to vilify the victim. Hence a) Ukrainians have no agency over their own country and b) they have to be corrupt and neo-nazis.

Hmm, after 554 pages @Tzeentch, perhaps we indeed should let the historians answer these issues.

If you have the time, here's a good (but extremely long) discussion by Lex Fridman and historian of Ukraine. Lex asks him seemingly everything that comes to his mind about Ukraine. NATO enlargement and why Putin attacked and what was the situation in the peace talks at start of the war all all discussed. Luckily you can find the topics on the youtube video (for example why did the peace talks fail starts at 2:09:30) or then listen for more than three hours. A long walk is great when listening, exercise is healthy.

Well, yes. Kind of.

They often correctly sense there is something wrong with the political elite. — Tzeentch

That's the point: there is much to tell what is wrong. It can be a great narrative.

Many times it can be the politician that falls out from the "in-crowd", messes up or gets his hand in the cookie jar. You won't find a better person to tell how crooked the elites are!

The real issue is, what really to do then!

Populism doesn't appear overnight. Usually years of neglect precede it, which is where all the anger and discontent comes from. — Tzeentch

I agree. It can be really a really long thing that really takes ages to happen. Disillusionment doesn't happen in a day.

The political elite no longer have the best interest of the nation at heart, and they have usurped the mechanism by which the nation could correct that. — Tzeentch

Yet are these individuals? Or is this a class or something vague?

If innocent people get targeted, that is of course regrettable. — Tzeentch

The real question is if targeting people is the answer in the first place.

And one thing is how do you define someone to be the culprit. Is trying, but making mistakes wrong? Or not doing anything about some issue when believing it's not your responsibility in the first place.

Prodding the bear, lol. Still going strong with Putin's narrative of US coups and NATO enlargement. And let's not forget Ukrainian Nazis! :joke:

Oh poor, poor Russia!

"Populism" is a term that is used when a political elite continuously refuses to acknowledge problems that exist inside a society. — Tzeentch

Umm...let's look at some definitions populism.

a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.

Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group with "the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment.

Populism, political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the common person, usually by favourable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment. Populism usually combines elements of the left and the right, opposing large business and financial interests but also frequently being hostile to established liberal, socialist, and labour parties.

Your definition is more like saying "Yep. Populists got it right!" :wink:

Many of this thread's participants seem to view "populism" as something negative, and therefore try to understand it in negative terms: "anti-democratic", "authoritarian", "truth-denying", etc. — Tzeentch

This is a very valid point. Why would it be so negative and why would it lead to authoritarianism? And perhaps this comes into topic I would hope to be discussed.

In politics there are two different questions to answer: a) What is basically wrong and b) How this problem will be solved.

And usually what is enough for a politician to get to answering part a). If a politician can in a simple fashion or in eloquent new way just say what's wrong and why, that basically it. If it's the issue that has nagged voters, yet perhaps they haven't come around to understand it so clearly, obviously someone just telling the truth will get support. Because to answer question b) is very complex and many times confusing. So your problem can be rampant corruption. Or unemployment and a failing economy which doesn't seem to have any answers. Then for the real political message of answering b), one can just declare "I can fix this!".

So if that is basically universal for all politicians, then what makes the populist different? In short, it's the antagonism, which is in the core message of populism: the culprits are the elite, who are against
the common honorable people. And if the populist has been part of the elite, that's absolutely no problem: he or she can just say: "Believe me, I know these people, I've been part of them!" And immediately the populist is made, by his or her own count, as a rebel and the enemy of this elite, who he or she has betrayed here when coming to the help of the common people.

A political ideology that has antagonism and starts from an inherent juxtaposition might not be the most helpful to create social cohesion, and can surely be abused.

Before anybody makes the remark here that "Isn't sometimes antagonism justified", it surely can be so. Revolutions do happen because of justified reasons. You can have a corrupt, out of touch elite that is ruining the country and when there is no other way to correct the system, then you can have in the end a revolution. But then it should be about the individuals in that elite, not about general hatred toward elites. It should be about correcting the culture of corruption and unlawfulness. It is abot the absolutely crucial question of how to solve the problems and what to build in the place of the old. When the ideology itself is antagonist from the start, it has the difficulty to then make the small fixes that are needed. There's the urge to just throw everything away and you can end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Also when you have started from the idea of the "evil elite" that you have to oppose, it's quite logical to replace this with your "own elite" of the right-minded. It isn't that your objective is to listen to your opponents and try to get some consensus. The populist has the moral high ground: he or she is working for the people, the common man and woman.

Yet do note what Bernays says:

This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. — Edward Bernays, Propaganda

And it isn't just the democratic society, It's every society. That vast numbers of human beings live together simply necessitates cooperation, specialization of work and an economy. All this needs rules. One might be critical of them, but they are needed.